Every once in awhile I get inspired and write a poem. I don’t do it often, though I wish I did. It’s a different kind of creativity that touches me in a different way. But it’s also very difficult and requires more patience the I can usually muster. I came across this poem this morning and thought I’d share it with you. It was first published in Coming Together in Verse, an anthology of erotic poetry edited by Ashley Lister, novelist, teacher, poet extraordinaire and an all around fabulous person.
I’ve always been captivated by scent. I’ve written poems and short stories centred around the sense of smell. In fact my novel, To Rome with Lust, is entirely driven by the sense of smell. We humans are mammals after all, and while we don’t live in a world where the sense of smell is essential to keeping us alive, and while we try to cover up the natural smells of our bodies and our lives, our sense of smell is still there, still powerful, still a huge part of our sexuality, if very much underused.
One of the things I have the strongest memories of in the early days of dating my husband is coming into his arms and taking in his scent, closing my eyes and recognising him through his scent, connecting with him through his scent as the one I wanted to be with. That hasn’t changed. The scent of attraction, of want and need and lust, still fascinates me, and the proof is in the poetry. Enjoy.
Stalking Your Scent
I stalk your scent, the wolf at midnight, mouth open to enticing aromas as you writhe beneath me in the dark, as you
kiss me and embrace me at your rising from tangled sheets and carelessly tossed clothing unaware that I sniff, that I breathe, that I test you like my unsuspecting next meal.
I stalk your scent day in, day out, my own scent driven by obsession, heightened by lust. I eat from you, sneak from you, steal from you what makes me want inside, need inside, burn inside.
I stalk your scent and mark you with mine, your throat, your heart, your cock. I possess you in the blending of spice and earth, of tide pool and storm, until I recognize myself only in the context of you, until I am contained only by the boundaries of your redolence.
I stalk your scent in the sleepless hours, riding you to exhaustion, thieving the perfume of your lust, to wear in secret, to flaunt in public. I crave your smell each time I touch you, each time I fuck you, each time I eat you, ruthlessly eat you, tasting and sniffing and lifting my hips to tease you.
I stalk your scent through the years, taking you in like the breath I breathe, no longer remembering a time when the smell of you didn’t move me, arouse me, quicken me.
I stalk your scent on the written page, olfactory after-images elusive and defiant, words lacking bouquet and base note for the depth of my obsession, for the heart of my need for the smell of you against my skin, you in my embrace, you replete in the sweat of sleep and the ozone of dreams and the promise of waking to take me again.
